


If You Get Lost You Can Always Be Found

by gczebos



Series: ( I'm Gonna Make This Place Your Home ) [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Child Abuse, Homeless Richie Tozier, Homophobia, Hurt Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, stan is richie tozier's best friend and y'all can fight me on it, the F slur is used in this please be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 09:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gczebos/pseuds/gczebos
Summary: The clubhouse wasn’t nearly as fun to be in without his fellow Losers. Though the polaroids taped to the walls brought him some sense of comfort, the silence was deafening, and the darkness intimidating. Richie pulled a blanket from the corner, and hopped into the hammock, trying his best to make himself feel at home.He fell asleep wishing the hammock weren't as empty as it felt.





	If You Get Lost You Can Always Be Found

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! Thank you so much for all of your support on my previous fic - I wouldn't be writing this without your encouragement and kindness! Follow me on Tumblr @gczebos and be my friend, and be sure to comment and leave kudos if you liked it! I'm trying to cook up some other fics - ideas are more than welcome!
> 
> TW: child abuse, homophobic remarks, depressing thoughts/implications, and homelessness.

Today was undoubtedly one of the best days in Richie Tozier’s life. He’d only seen fifteen years’ worth of days ( well, closer to sixteen by now really ), and this one held the #1 spot on the charts.

His day started with actually eating breakfast - a rarity and a treat in the Tozier household. His mother had replenished the cereal in the cupboard and the milk in the fridge ( Fruity Pebbles, Richie’s favorite ), which meant Richie would have something in his stomach to last him until lunch, which in turn meant that his attention span in his morning classes would be better than it normally was.

He followed up his hearty breakfast with biking to Stan’s house, then Eddie’s, and then continuing on to school together. Sure, they argued the entire way there (  _ I swear to fucking god Richie you’re gonna kill yourself trying to pop a wheelie and I’m not taking your dumb fucking ass to the hospital when you shatter every bone in your body because you wanted to look cool  _ ) but every time Stan rolled his eyes or Eddie lectured him about the dangers of bike tricks, Richie’s smile only grew in size.

Somehow, he managed to get through the entire day without earning himself a detention or running into any local bullies, which meant that there were no delays in his schedule as he biked to the clubhouse with the other Losers after school. He’d managed to claim the hammock first, grabbing a newer copy of Spider-Man to read while he lounged. Eddie fought his way into the hammock with him, but if that surprised anyone, they didn’t let it show. The new Spider-Man comic was kickass (  _ “Imagine me swinging around Derry Eds, pshh, pshh,” “Stop rocking the hammock dumbass you’re gonna break it, and there are no skyscrapers here anyway! And don’t call me Eds!”  _ ), his friends were all in good spirits, and everything felt like it was part of a picture perfect Hollywood movie.

_ Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. _

Yeah, today seemed like a Ferris Bueller type of day, even though Richie had actually gone to school, and he didn’t do anything particularly crazy, like join a parade in the middle of Chicago ( though it was on his bucket list ). It was just a perfect day in Richie’s eyes, from the moment he got out of bed, to the moment he was back on his own front stoop after getting ice cream with the Losers that evening.

Rocky Road still on his lips, Richie opened his front door and practically waltzed into the kitchen, dropping his backpack right on the floor. Just as he went to grab a glass for some water, a strong hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him harshly backwards.

Some things in life are just too good to be true, apparently.

His father had pulled him so roughly that Richie stumbled backwards against the wall, the pantry’s doorknob jutting into his back painfully.

“Wherethefuck were you?” Wentworth asked, his words running together just as Richie spotted the nearly empty beer bottle in his other hand.  _ Shit _ . Richie adjusted his glasses, doing his best to calculate how fast he could get to the front door.

“Out with friends.” He replied, his voice quiet. Sometimes he wondered if he was known as a loudmouth at school because he couldn’t be one at home. The Losers wouldn’t recognize this Richie (  _ though they’d probably appreciate the peace and quiet  _ ), afraid and timid in comparison to the looming and large figure of his father. He’d fought a shapeshifting fucker of a clown in the sewers, but facing his parents on a bad day? Way worse.

“Why’re you lying to us, Richard?” Maggie added, appearing in the doorway to the living room, cigarette in hand.  _ Double Shit. _ Usually it was one parent ragging on him or the other - not both.

“I’m not lying - I was just out with Eddie and -”

“Stay away from that boy.” His father growled, and suddenly, Richie was very confused. What was wrong with Eddie? If anything, Eddie was probably a good influence on him - always focusing on safety, earning good grades, saying please and thank you to the adults, yadda yadda - all the stuff Richie wasn’t, Eddie seemed to be.

“Why?”

It was the wrong question to ask, apparently, because suddenly Wentworth was backhanding him, causing his face to sting horribly, his glasses to crack, and a small yelp to escape his lips.

“Heard you were holding hands with him like a fucking faggot.” And there it was - the truth had been uncovered, the source of the problem dug up from where Richie had tried so hard to hide it. Normally, Richie would say his parents were overreacting about whatever the issue was and shrug it off at the end of the night, knowing that their words weren’t always true. Instead, he grew paler at the word, and his mother seemed to catch on, approaching him with a malicious glint in her eyes. “You know what happens to faggots, Richie?”

The front door was too far, the back door ever further, the stairs impossible to get to - he was so fucked.

“They burn in hell.”

And her cigarette was pressed into his cheek, and Richie was screaming, and his own mother was laughing at him because of course a day as perfect as today had been a lie - he should’ve known the other shoe was going to drop sooner rather than later.

He had tears in his eyes by the time she pulled the cigarette away from his face. He found himself wanting to be brave for once - for Eddie’s sake, and maybe even his own.

“I-I can hold hands with whoever I want to.” Richie retorted, gathering up the courage and strength he needed. “And that’s not up to you, it’s not up to you to decide if I like holding boys’ hands and if I’m heading to hell, I’ll see both of you there you fucking -”

He did his best to prepare for his father’s blow, but no amount of preparation would make the bottle smashing on his head any easier. Richie fell to the floor, disoriented and bleeding from the impact, Eddie’s voice echoing in his head (  _ head wounds bleed a shit ton but that doesn’t always mean they’re fatal  _ ). He tried to crawl towards the front door, but the sharp pain made the movement slow, slow enough for his father to continue throwing things in his direction - plates, more beer bottles, whatever he could get his hands on. His mother kept repeating  _ that word _ , screaming it at the top of her lungs as Richie slowly but surely made his way to the front door, scrambling to get outside, to get away, to go somewhere safe and sound.

He’d made it onto the porch, but before he could close the door, his mother picked up his backpack and threw it at him, the heavy bookbag causing him to grunt as it hit his ribs.

“Get out, never come back you fucking fag.”

The door slammed in his face, and Richie heard the locks turn before his vision went black.

* * *

_ Fuck. _ Everything hurt.

Richie had tried to catalog his injuries for later - the burn on his cheek would leave a nasty scar, his glasses broken and his face lightly bruised from the backhand, nicks and cuts from broken glassware, an aching side from his own textbooks hitting him, and dried blood from the top of his head, trailing all the way down his face to his cheeks. 

Great, just another Tuesday.

He began slowly moving from his front porch, wincing as he shouldered his backpack and stood up.  _ Jesus, I feel like a train fucking hit me _ . It was late out, probably close to ten or eleven if he had to guess, meaning that most of his options for help were out of commission by now.

Was he homeless now?

Richie wasn’t sure if he parents were serious about him never coming back. They’d said those words before and welcomed him back into the house with nothing more than a glance and an indifferent shrug, but this time felt different. Plus, all of his stuff was there, half of his school stuff, hell, other pairs of clothes - there was no way they’d just kick him out with nothing to live off of, right? His parents were shitty, but they couldn’t possibly be less shitty...right?

Richie promptly vomited on the side of the road just thinking about it.

He considered walking to Eddie’s - Eddie would know how to patch him right up (  _ That’s it, Doctor K! Now all you need is the sexy sexy nurse costume!  _ ), but his own mother’s words kept repeating through his brain like a broken record and he couldn’t bring himself to head in Eddie’s direction. It’s one thing to be called a faggot if you aren’t one - it’s harmless, just as effective of an insult as asshole, bitch, or dipshit. But her words hit him harder than any insult she’d doled out in the past because - well, he didn’t carve his and Eddie’s initials on the Kissing Bridge for nothing. No, seeing Eddie right now would just make him feel worse, and if he felt worse, Eddie would make him  _ talk _ about it, and there was nothing Richie hated more than having to actually have a serious conversation about his emotional and physical well-being. No - Eddie wasn’t the right answer.

He started wandering down the street, his head throbbing and spots dancing in his vision every now and again, and soon enough the answer was clear as day. Stan lived just a few blocks down, and if he could make it there in one piece (which was already a big  _ if _ ), Stan would certainly clean him up without asking too many questions - at least, not as many questions as Eddie would’ve asked. He pushed forward, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears and the ache of his side with every step he took. He passed houses that all seemed to look the same, and wondered if other kids were safe and sound in their beds while he tried his best not to die in the middle of the street.

Eventually, he made it to the house, up the pristine front steps, and to the baby blue front door. He couldn’t bring himself to knock on the front door, not wanting to scare Stan’s parents half to death. Luckily, this wasn’t his first rodeo when it came to visiting Stan at all hours of the night (  _ Well howdy, Staniel, long time no see!  _ ), and Ben had helped them create a communication button on the porch that when pressed, flickered a light on and off in stan’s room (  _ thank god someone in this group has more than one brain cell  _ ). Richie pressed the button twice, or maybe three times - things were starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges now.

“Richie, do you even know what time it is?” 

Stan opened the door in his navy pajamas, rubbing his eyes as if he’d already been half asleep. Richie thought about bolting, apologizing for waking Stan up from his beauty sleep, and going somewhere else, like Bev’s aunt’s place or maybe even Mike’s - but he couldn’t move fast enough if he tried. Stan’s entire demeanor shifted when he got a good look at Richie and was suddenly ushering him inside. Stan closed the door gently (  _ Stan do you even know how to slam a door?  _ ) and the pair walked up in silence, Stan’s hand on Richie’s back as he occasionally stumbled.

Once they were in the safety of Stan’s room, Richie sitting on the light blue bed sheets (  _ for once, not neatly made like they were when he visited in the afternoons  _ ), the silence broke. 

“Who did this to you?”

Normally, Richie would just make some sort of joking-excuse about falling down the stairs, or running into the bullies after school, or how Eddie’s mom had gotten a little too frisky with him. Tonight wasn’t a night for joking, Richie felt, and if he couldn’t trust Stan, then who could he trust?

“My parents.”

The words came out small, and Richie looked even smaller. Stan had always known Richie’s parents weren’t the best. He could tell by the way Richie only sometimes had money to buy school lunches, while his own was meticulously packed by his mother; he could tell because Richie’s parents never seemed to worry about his whereabouts (  _ except on Tuesdays, when Richie always said it’d be best to get home early for dinner  _ ); he could tell because his parents never helped him through colds, and because Stanley had never seen them give Richie a hug before, even when they were kids. But this? This was a new level of shitty parenting - he thought about telling his parents about it, they always knew what to do. Richie was one step ahead of him.

“Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

Maybe it was the desperation in Richie’s tone, or the pain he was clearly trying his best to hide, but whatever it was, Stan found himself nodding in response. He pulled out a first-aid kit - not as fancy or elaborate as Eddie’s by any means, but a first-aid kit all the same. Stan took his time cleaning Richie up - the cigarette burn hurt like a bitch and made Stanley want to cry just looking at it, but soon enough the blood was cleared from his head with a washcloth, the burn covered with a small piece of gauze, the nicks and cuts band-aided up, his glasses set on the side table ( for now ), and a bag of frozen peas Stan had grabbed from downstairs held against Richie’s side. 

When all was said and done, Stan pulled Richie in for a hug. Richie accepted it graciously, keeping his mouth shut while they shared a genuine moment for a change. He knew he could trust Stan to help him out for just one night.  _ But what if they’ve really kicked you out, Richie? What if you have no place to go? _

Stan made room for Richie on his bed, and the two shared just as they always had at sleepovers growing up. Just before the two teenagers fell asleep, Stan turned to face the taller boy.

“I’m glad you came to me.”

Richie couldn’t see much with the lights off and his glasses still on the side table, but he hoped Stan didn’t look too worried for him ( he did ).

“Me too.” Richie whispered, and then in an even softer tone, as if he didn’t want the other boy to be able to hear it, “Thanks, Stan. For everything.”

* * *

“Wh-Wh-What’s that on your f-f-f-face, R-Rich?”

Richie didn’t want to go to school the next day, mainly because his entire body still ached, but also because he didn’t want to deal with the questions he got from friends and teachers alike, nor did he want to deal with how loud school was. Typically Richie wouldn’t mind all the noise, hell, he’d even be part of all the racket, but with a raging headache and a solemn mood, he didn’t want to face any of it.

Still, Stan had made him go - arguing that the other Losers would worry even more if he wasn’t there.

“Got in a tiff with Eddie’s mom, it didn’t end well.” Richie snapped, his tone far colder than normal.

“No seriously, Richie -”

“I’m being fucking serious.”

“Where are your glasses?” 

That was the other thing - his glasses were broken beyond repair, which meant going through the school day blind as a bat in addition to everything else. Luckily, Eddie had opened up his godforsaken fanny pack at that moment and passed him his spare glasses - ones that Richie forgot even existed. His ears turned red as he put the spares on, and he hoped nobody noticed.

“It’s fine, it’s just -” Richie glanced quickly over to Stan, who raised an eyebrow as if to say _ You should tell them. _ Richie promptly rolled his eyes, and let out a dramatic sigh, which only meant bullshit was coming out of his mouth next.

“Fine, fine! You wanna know? I’ll give you the full sob story. I...couldn’t stop poking at this huge zit last night, and I mean huge, that’s what this bandage is for and everything, cause it was so big and when I popped it all of this puss and goo -”

“Fucking beep beep, Richie, that’s fucking disgusting - did you poke it with your bare hands? Do you know how infected that could possibly be now? I mean seriously, dipshit, you could get sick from getting your nasty hands all over it -”

“It’s fine, Eduardo - Stanley the Manley took a look at it this morning and smacked this bandage-y shit on it I’m good as new, right Staniel?”

Stan hesitated before nodding.

“Good as new.”

For some reason, as the warning bell called out the end of lunch, Stan wasn’t quite sure he believed his own words.

* * *

Richie decided to bike home alone that day, claiming that he actually wanted to give some of his homework a solid try before heading to the clubhouse to hang out with everyone (  _ “If you need any help, just come over, Richie,” “Why thank you kindly, Mister Benjamin, I surely do appreciate the sentiment of your wildly gracious offer,” “Not the Southern Belle again, jesus christ,”  _ ). He was a little nervous about going home and walking into a warzone, but he couldn’t take advantage of Stan’s house forever. He biked down his street, humming some tune he’d heard on the radio earlier to keep his mind distracted from all the things that could possibly go wrong.

When he arrived in front of his house, there was a single cardboard box with some clothes thrown haphazardly into it, along with two textbooks ( from last year, not even the ones in his room he actually needed for school ), an old backpack, a pair of shoes, and a twenty dollar bill.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, shit, fuck.”

Richie stuffed as much of the clothing as he could into the old backpack, and anything else he could fit into the one he already had on his back. He thought about all the stuff in his room - photographs with the Losers, notes he’d passed in class, all of his mixtapes - would he ever see his things again? Would his parents clean out his room and pretend he never existed? Flashes of the missing child poster with his face on it from Neibolt played in his head, and suddenly Richie was having trouble breathing as he biked towards the clubhouse, wondering if anybody would miss him if he was erased from their lives. If his own parents hated him that much, the Losers couldn’t possibly care if he disappeared, right?

_ What am I gonna tell them? _ He panicked even more, not knowing how to tell his friends that his parents were so disgusted with him for liking boys, for liking, well -  _ one _ boy, that they’d kicked him to the curb for good. He couldn’t tell the Losers without telling them why, and telling them why was something he was entirely not ready for. Maybe one day, one day he’d tell them. But not yet. Not now.

Instead, he biked to the clubhouse, hiding his backpacks in the bushes just a few paces from the entrance, and plastering a grin on his face before shoving Eddie out of the hammock ( only momentarily, before he crawled back in ). That afternoon was okay - he helped Bev paint her toenails, reenacted a comic book for the whole group using his Voices, and he listened to Ben drone on and on about World War II until he managed to fall asleep on the clubhouse floor.

* * *

“Hey dipshit.”

Richie opened his eyes to find Eddie nudging him with his foot. 

“Five more minutes.”

“I’m not your mother.”

“Yeah, but I’m banging yours.”

“Jesus fucking - get up, it’s dark and everyone else went home.”

That woke Richie up. Eddie wasn’t lying - the two of them were alone in the clubhouse, the last bits of sunlight fading through the cracks in between the slats of wood.

It was dark outside, and Eddie had stayed. Eddie had stayed - for  _ him. _ And Richie knew that Eddie wasn’t fond of the dark - especially after all of the shit they had dealt with  _ that _ summer. He tried his best to keep his heart from beating right out of his chest and thanked the big man upstairs silently for making the clubhouse dark enough that the blush rising in his cheeks went unnoticed. However, he cursed the same big guy in the sky for not reminding him to think before speaking when he said,

“Aw, how sweet of you to wait for me, Eds - but I believe Sleeping Beauty didn’t wake up until she got a big ol’ smooch from her prince.”

This time it was Eddie’s turn to blush, though Richie couldn’t see a damn thing in the dark, even with his glasses.

“Shut up, I’m not kissing you, you’re already awake.”

_ Does that mean if I were really asleep you would give it a try? _

“Listen, you can head on out, Eddie Spaghetti. I’m gonna stay here a little while longer.”  _ A lot longer. Like, I have nowhere else to stay and at least there’s a hammock here, longer. _

“I can wait with you.”

_ Shit. _ “Nah, Eds, won’t your mom like, blow a gasket or something? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“It’s not past my curfew yet, dumbass, it’s fine,” Eddie added ( even though it was definitely past his curfew, and his mom was probably sending his picture to the milk carton companies that very second ). He plopped himself back on the floor, shrugging as he said, “I’ll stay here with you.”

Richie’s heart felt like it might explode in that moment, watching Eddie in that stupid sweater with his stupid fannypack just sit there, getting the dirt out from under his nails and following up with some hand sanitizer, like he didn’t have anywhere else to be, like there was nowhere he’d rather be - Richie’s breathing sped up,  _ what if he never leaves? What if he finds out about my parents, about -  _

“Are you okay?” The words came so delicately that Richie almost didn’t hear them over his own anxiety attack. But when faced with the question, he wasn’t sure how he should answer. He wasn’t okay, not in the slightest - but worrying his friends always made him feel awful, and he didn’t want anyone’s pity - it was his fault he was kicked out anyway.

“I’m doing just fine, Eduardo. Just got a lot on my mind, I think it’s going into overdrive.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Eddie shivered as a wind passed through the clubhouse, and Richie took that as his sign to get going. 

“Well, Eds - I’m getting a little bit chilly down here. Let’s get you back to Mrs. K before she calls in the national guard.”

“Beep beep, Rich.” Eddie said with a smile, making Richie smile in return. The two biked back to the Kaspbrak residence in content silence, letting the crickets and the owls and the sounds of the night-time fill the wordless gap between them.

A very distraught Mrs. Kaspbrak was standing on the porch when they arrived at Eddie’s, and Eddie gave Richie an apologetic look before his mother dragged him inside, shooing Richie away and slamming the door. Richie sighed, biking back to the clubhouse where he’d just been, trying to ease his mind about spending the night alone, outdoors, and in the cold.

The clubhouse wasn’t nearly as fun to be in without his fellow Losers. Though the polaroids taped to the walls brought him some sense of comfort, the silence was deafening, and the darkness intimidating. Richie pulled a blanket from the corner, and hopped into the hammock, trying his best to make himself feel at home.

He fell asleep wishing the hammock weren't as empty as it felt.

* * *

The days turned to weeks, and soon enough Richie was used to the way the winds blew through the clubhouse, chilling him to the bone. The only thing worse than the wind was the rain, which the clubhouse didn’t protect him from very well at all. On more than one occasion, Richie didn’t end up falling asleep at all because his hair and clothes were drenched and the rain pounded on the roof of the clubhouse like someone trying desperately to get in.

There were nights with nightmares. Nightmares about scary clowns. Nightmares about Henry Bowers. Nightmares about the missing poster with his face on it. Nightmares about nobody caring if he disappeared.

There were nights of sickness - the cold and wet led to Richie getting a cold, sneezing his way through the school day and trying his best to get rid of a fever at night. 

Nobody noticed he was acting differently, at least not for nearly a month.

Richie was becoming a shell of a person the longer he lived on his own. How could he be a fully functioning human being without food in his stomach, blankets to keep him warm at night, or hell, love and affection of any kind? It was a miracle he’d lasted this long without kicking the bucket, and Richie was determined to silently challenge his own survival skills daily.

And then - then the Losers found out. 

_ By the time both of Richie’s feet were firmly on the floor of the clubhouse, he was barely holding his tears in. But one look at the Losers, his Losers with those stupid fucking hairnets on, all waiting to see him, and he was full-on, ugly sobbing. The others were by his side in a heartbeat, everyone hugging Richie’s lanky, soaking wet form in what must be the best group hug in all of history. Stan had reached him first, Eddie hot on his heels, and then there were all there, telling him that everything would be okay, that they were sorry ( you have nothing to be sorry for ), that if Richie ever needed anything, anything , that he could come to them without hesitation - and Richie couldn’t stop fucking crying, he wished his eyes would stop leaking fucking liquid but instead he let it out, and he let his friends in. _

And Richie had to say it was a big relief, the weight of the world lifted off of his shoulders - but he felt guilty for putting it on his friends’ shoulders because of their discovery, and he wished he could bear the burden alone again. It wasn’t fair that they all looked at him with sadness in their eyes, with pity, and with love  _ I don’t deserve love, look at me! I’m disgusting! Why do they stay? Why should they stay? I am a person worth leaving, don’t you get it? I am a person worth kicking out of the house with nothing and leaving for dead!  _ Accepting love from his fellow Losers wasn’t an easy battle, but they were kind, and patient, and forgiving.

Mike had started bringing food from the farm for Richie to eat at lunch. Ben had loaned him some of his textbooks, since most of Richie’s were locked up at his old house. Bill had offered to go with him and get some of his stuff back when Richie’s parents weren’t home. Bev had held him in hugs long enough to ground him, whispering words that he didn’t want anyone else to know he needed to hear desperately. Stan had offered up his home, his parents glad to take him in their guest room without a second thought. And Eddie - Eddie had begun to show him little pieces of affection that made his heart blossom every time. 

He didn’t think he deserved their love - any of it, but little by little the Losers made sure to etch themselves into his heart: 

(  _ we are here for you, we are your family, and we always will be.  _ )

**Author's Note:**

> What should I write next? Give me all the prompts!!!


End file.
